Adama Traoré, 24, Black man of Malian-French descent, died in police custody on 19 July 2016, in Beaumont-sur-Oise, in the suburbs of northern Paris.

Around 5pm that day, Traoré ran into a patrol of three police officers. Two hours later, he was dead. The uncertainty surrounding his death sparked a protest movement across France, which continues to this day.

Based on statements from different witnesses, CCTV footage, and other elements of the ongoing official investigation, Le Monde and FA produced a detailed reconstruction of the events leading up to Traore’s death.

In spite of the detailed scrutiny to which the police officers have been submitted in their official interrogations, their statements do not allow for a single, unequivocal version of the events to emerge. For this reason, FA produced multiple digital reconstructions of key moments, visualising the distinct and at times contradictory accounts given by each officer. Our investigation reveals how the main medical expertise commissioned by the justice system relies on a single, and contradictory, testimony.

Due to the inherently partial nature of testimonial evidence, investigation does not point to a conclusive finding of about the circumstances of Adama Traoré’s death, but demonstrates the gap that remains between the official version of the facts and the available evidence.

The main challenge in this investigation was the absence of any material evidence around the circumstances of Traoré’s arrest inside the apartment where he was apprehended. The only source of information available were the statements by the three police officers that carried out the arrest. Each officer delivered three different statements between 2016 and 2018. Between these statements, a single version of the events fails to emerge. For this reason, FA produced multiple digital reconstructions of key moments, visualising the distinct and at times contradictory accounts given by each officer.

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The process of 3D modeling the positions and gestures of the suspect and of the three officers, as described in their own statement, allowed for a detailed study of the configuration of their bodies, and highlighted the ‘grey zones’ that still remain around the causes of Traoré’s death.

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The same process of reconstruction was employed to visualise the conditions in which Traoré was held. Further contradictions have thereby appeared in relation to the assistance Traoré was (or indeed, was not) provided with after falling unconscious while in police custody.

In spite of the numerous requests formulated by Adama Traoré’s family and their lawyer, the French judiciary has yet to order that a physical reconstruction of the key moments of the case be undertaken.